Many students, when learning to write, have difficulties in proper formation of alpha-numeric and other similar types of characters. For example, many students do not know where to start a particular character or what stroke in a character should follow a previous stroke, while other students reverse the formation of letters such as "b", "s" and "p". It is frequently difficult for a teacher to observe the writing habits of multiple students closely enough to realize when the students are making errors of this nature.
I have found that teaching the satisfactory formation of characters can be obtained if the student follows a light beam that moves in accordance with the formation of the character in the desired manner. By projecting the moving light beam through a translucent sheet of paper, the student learns proper character formation by tracing the beam movement on the sheet of paper with a pencil.
It is, accordingly, an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved device for enabling students to learn the formation of alpha-numeric and other similar types of characters.
Another object of the invention is to provide a new and improved apparatus for enabling the motion of an instructor's scriber to be reproduced with a visible, moving light spot at a student station so that the student can learn the desired formation of alpha-numeric and other similar characters.
It is realized that there have been developed numerous devices which are adapted to reproduce the movement of a stylus or scriber at a location remote from the location where the scriber is utilized. However, these devices have, in general, been relatively expensive and not usually particularly adapted for educational purposes. Generally, the prior art devices have been complex and have required entirely separate types of input and output devices; one type of device has generally been referred to as a telautograph apparatus. The telautograph devices are not particularly adapted for educational purposes because they form a permanent or semi-permanent image of the reproduced stylus movement. For pedagogical purposes for the formation of alpha-numeric and other similar types of characters, it is desirable to have the image or part thereof appear to move and not be permanent. A further disadvantage of many of the prior art telautograph devices is that they require a writing stylus to include special structure. For example, in Wollrich, U.S. Pat. No. 3,535,447, a pen with an oscillator coil is translated over a surface including a multiplicity of receiver coils. Of course, the use of a special pen with an oscillator has several disadvantages, such as cost and general non-availability.
It is, therefore, a further object of the invention to provide a new and improved device for enabling the motion of generally available scribers, such as a ball point pen, to be reproduced.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide a new and improved device for teaching the formation of alpha-numeric and other similar characters with a device that includes a controllable moving light source that enables a student to trace the path of the light source on a translucent sheet of paper positioned on the teaching device.
Another object of the invention is to provide a new and improved apparatus for teaching students to form letters, wherein the same apparatus can be used as an input device for a teacher to derive control signals and as an output device for providing a visual reproduction of the scriber movement in response to the control signals.